


Salt Helps It Boil Faster

by antheia



Category: Alias RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-09-10
Updated: 2003-09-10
Packaged: 2017-10-30 12:42:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antheia/pseuds/antheia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was a zygote when you were in the fifth grade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salt Helps It Boil Faster

**David**

"It just isn't right," Kevin finally managed to say.

"Get the fuck out," David snapped, suddenly venomous. "Get. The hell. OUT of my apartment."

And Kevin had. He thought they'd been through all this. He couldn't believe that it had come rushing back tonight. It was just a stupid age difference ("an entire fifth grader," Kevin had reminded him) for chrissakes; it was beyond irrelevant.

David stalked back to the counter and threw the remains of their burgers in the trash, his appetite suddenly dead.

If he'd been a woman he might have yelled, cried, screamed, or begged. But he was a guy. So he'd kicked him out. And that had been the last he'd seen of him. Until Disney. When Kevin had spent the whole day with Greg - laughing, smiling, chatting with everyone else, and ignoring David completely.

Melissa had noticed that something was wrong with him, and wondered aloud to him why a twenty one year old wasn't scarfing down hotdogs and popcorn at an event like this. She had smiled at him, and seemed interested. And it was something. So he'd put an arm around her and, for the first time in months, flirted.

 

**Kevin**

When he'd left the apartment, he'd just started to drive. He didn't know where he was going, or why. He didn't really care, either. The only thing he did know was that he couldn't go back to his house. David's shirts on the bedroom floor, his toothbrush in the bathroom, beer in the fridge, empty longnecks on the coffee table - Kevin knew he couldn't handle it.

He'd tried so hard to get the age difference out of his head. David was smart, driven, talented and funny. The difference shouldn't matter. But it did, to Kevin. He couldn't get that stupid line from that stupid movie out of his head. The fact was that while he'd been learning grammar in the fifth grade, David had been forming into a foetus.

It didn't just occur to him from time to time, it occurred to him at the worst possible times. Like when David was licking his neck. Or nibbling his ear. Or when his fingers were twined in David's hair, sighs building in the back of his throat.

He just couldn't put it out of his mind anymore. So he'd said so. And David had kicked him out. And he'd deserved it.

Kevin found himself pulling into a driveway, Greg's driveway. He wasn't sure why, but he'd come here on an instinct, powered by something, so he just rang the doorbell.

"Of course you can spend the night," Greg had said, and went to a closet to pull out a blanket with holes in and a ratty old pillow. Probably left over from his starving-actor-surfing-sofas phase.

At first Greg had just been a shoulder to cry on. But somehow it had turned into something more. If he were to be really honest, he'd turned it into something more. Tired, sad and alone, Kevin had asked Greg to come over and help him clean David's stuff up.

Sitting on a bed full of t-shirts, cds, books and scripts, Kevin had crumbled. And Greg had been there to put an arm around him. The warmth, the comfort, and the care of the action had pushed him. Too far, maybe, but he didn't think about it at the time. Ironic that he could push unwanted thoughts from his mind then and there. He had kissed Greg, softly at first, tears salting the taste of his mouth. It was comforting, and Kevin needed comfort more than anything.

 

**Greg**

Kevin had shown up on his doorstep weeks ago, clearly upset and in no condition to do anything but sleep. He'd given him an old blanket and pillow and let him crash on the couch.

In the morning he'd found the living room empty, the blanket folded and rested on top of the pillow. There was a note on the kitchen counter saying thank you, and that he'd give him a call. He had really been hoping to find Kevin just waking up, so that they could spend the morning hanging out. But he wasn't really surprised.

He was surprised a few hours later when Kevin called and asked him to come over. Greg went without hesitation, and was alarmed at the look on Kevin's face as he opened the door. He had been crying. Or, at least, that's what it looked like.

"Come in," Kevin said, turning and walking further into the house. Greg followed him to his bedroom. Just next to the bed sat a box, holding two cds and a script. The bed was littered with clothing, cds, scripts, and books: the debris of a shared life. Sitting in the center of the bed was Kevin, who seemed barely to be hanging on. As Greg found a space on the bed, moving a pair of sunglasses off to the side, Kevin snapped. Without even thinking about it, Greg put his arm around the smaller man, and pulled him into a hug. He couldn't tell how long they'd been sitting like that but it felt like forever and no time at all when suddenly Kevin's tear stained lips met his.

It was a dream. It felt like a dream, or maybe he'd just dreamed about it so many times that when it finally happened it felt like dreaming. Except for the taste of salt.

 

**David**

She was different. It was different with her. There were so many things that were wrong ("different!" he reminded himself). Waking up with hairless legs wrapped around his, kissing her and not being scarred by stubble. The long hair blond hair that draped itself over his arm in the night. Even the way she smelled was wrong ("DIFFERENT!").

But she was comforting. She was there. And, most importantly, she was someone to stand with in crowded rooms, full of Kevin. And Greg.

Greg, who was four years older than Kevin. Greg, whose age difference was more acceptable than his. Greg, who was clearly not as different ("WRONG!") for Kevin as Melissa was for him.

He still wasn't eating, couldn't eat. Sometimes he'd force himself to a piece of dry toast, or a power bar. But mostly he just drank. Water in the day, beer at night. Empty longnecks littered his apartment, to the point where Melissa, who was ordinarily so graceful couldn't walk through a room without knocking one down.

By the time they'd started shooting, he had lost ten pounds, enough to make him look an Auschwitz survivor. J.J. thought that he'd done it for the character. David knew the truth, and hoped Kevin did, too.

 

**Kevin**

David looked like he was dying. Every time he saw him, that's what he thought. Greg and J.J. both believed that it was for the character, and Kevin wanted to agree, but there was something in his eyes. This was more than his usual dedication to the role. He was starving himself to death, and it was Kevin's fault ("my responsibility," he thought.).

 

**Greg**

Greg saw it. They all did. David was a wreck, and Kevin was terrified. And all this scared the shit out of Greg. He'd wanted Kevin for so long, but David was a friend, and a good guy. And he didn't really have Kevin, because he would always be David's, whether he would admit it or not. There was no getting around it.

Even if he could ignore the way Kevin looked at him, or the way he stared out the window, he couldn't ignore that Kevin talked about, and sometimes to, David in his sleep. He couldn't ignore that Kevin sometimes fingered the collar of the one t-shirt he hadn't given back to David.

Greg saw it coming, even though he couldn't admit it to himself. Even though Kevin didn't see it. He knew, as Kevin fell asleep with an arm draped across his chest, that their nights together were numbered.

 

**David**

She tries, she tries so hard that he feels awful. He wishes he could eat, Just so that she would feel better, feel like she was getting through to her. He feels worse knowing that she's falling in love with him. He's learning about the ways women are different, but he wasn't prepared for her to tell him as frankly as she did. They had been sitting on opposite sides of the couch, watching the news, and she'd just said it.

"I love you, David."

He hadn't said anything. There was nothing to say.

Sometimes when they were having sex, he would try to say it back, but the words wouldn't come, and neither could he. And he knew why. And so did she.

Still, she pushed, she held on, she tried so hard that she was getting migraines.

He had been right, that night that Kevin had left ("that you sent him away, asshole," he reminded himself.). A woman would have done everything she could to keep him there.

But he wasn't a woman, and it wasn't a woman he wanted. It wasn't anyone he wanted, except Kevin. And there was no getting away from it.

 

**Kevin**

Kevin was at the craft food services table when it happened. When David's body finally gave out, when he fainted on set, like some Victorian woman. The heat, the work schedule, the not eating, it was all too much.

Michael and Victor had helped him to his trailer, but it was Greg who found him, and told him. It was Greg who came to him and said, "Something's wrong with David. You need to go." Greg, who knew in that moment, with that one action, that he was about to lose Kevin forever.

And Kevin hadn't even been able to stop to comfort him. He had literally dropped everything, scattering French fries and corn all over the floor, and run to David's trailer.

 

**David**

Kevin. Kevin's shoes. Kevin's sweaters. Kevin's fingers. His sheets, his house, his music, his smell. It all kaleidoscoped in his mind until the colors blurred together and the world went white.

He woke up to the sound of Kevin's voice repeating, quietly but insistently, "David, wake up. Wake the hell up. Come on, please. Just blink, or some fucking thing. You stupid fucking shit. Wake up, stop scaring me. Us. Please." He woke up to Kevin's face hovering over his, to the feeling of being alternately kissed and shaken. To the smell of Kevin's soap, sweat and aftershave. He woke up and thought that maybe he was dreaming.

 

**Kevin**

When David's eyes opened, Kevin could barely contain himself. He pushed his hands further around his body and pulled him into a half-cradling bear hug. In his terror, the universe had congealed.

There wasn't anyone else. There was nobody but David who could have made him react like that. Who could make him forget in one single second that there were other people and other things in the world.

He knew where home was, where he belonged. And he knew that eleven years didn't matter, except as years that they hadn't known each other.

The taste of salt would always remind them of whispered promises of "never again," "always," and "forever."  
  



End file.
